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Introducing ReFolkUs, a new podcast by Folk Music Ontario, where we talk to artists and music industry professionals about building sustainable careers as creative workers, with a focus on folk.
[00:00:00] Rosalyn: Hello, and welcome to season two of ReFolkUs, where we talk to artists and music industry professionals about building sustainable careers as creative workers with a focus on folk. I'm your host, Rosalyn Dennett.
[00:00:20] .
[00:00:28] Rosalyn: Hello, and welcome to [00:00:30] ReFolkUs. Today, we're speaking with Samir Baijal. Samir has been the Artistic Director at the Hillside Festival since 1998 and also programs entertainment at the University of Guelph, where he has worked for 30 years. His favorite activity is going to concerts, as you can well imagine.
[00:00:48] Rosalyn: Here's our conversation with Samir.
[00:00:57] Rosalyn: Samir, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you [00:01:00] doing?
[00:01:00] Samir: I'm fine, thanks. How are you?
[00:01:01] Rosalyn: I'm doing very well. So excited to get to speak with you today. I've had the pleasure of getting to, attend and, uh, as well as perform it at Hillside. So it's a festival that I'm familiar with and is already near and dear to my heart. I'm wondering if you can, start by telling us how you got involved in the festival and how long you've been involved.
[00:01:22] Samir: I've been involved with the festival since like 1994, I think? 93, 94? I [00:01:30] was just asked to kind of get involved because I was already booking music for the university. I ended up at that time joining the board of directors.
[00:01:37] Samir: It was a very hands-on board at that time. And then eventually it just, the circumstances were such that, you know, we didn't really have anybody to do the official role of an artistic director. and the circumstances were that, you know, we needed somebody to do that and I just ended up doing it for the time being.
[00:01:57] Samir: It wasn't supposed to be permanent. It [00:02:00] was going to be like, Oh, I'm going to do this for a few months and get things started for the festival year of 98 or whatever. And then I would, we would hire somebody, but it didn't work out that way. Honestly, my plan was not to work for the festival.
[00:02:12] Samir: It was like, I was on the board,I said, I think I can help out here and at least get the process started until we figure out what we're doing. And then it just turned out that it was harder to find somebody then we thought it would be, um, and by the time we were doing it, I'd already booked the whole festival and it was like, well, why don't you just [00:02:30] do it?
[00:02:30] Samir: And I went, uh, well, okay, let's see what happens. And that's kind of the rest is history, literally, you know.
[00:02:38] Rosalyn: Yeah, that's, decades in the making. That's amazing. So I'm wondering if you can give me, like a bird's eye view of the festival..
[00:02:46] Samir: yeah, I mean the main event, which is the summer festival, you know, which has been going now is, I think this will be year 41 coming up. Um, It's like three days, you know, uh, six o'clock to six to [00:03:00] 11 each on Friday and like 11 to 11 each Saturday, Sunday, on Guelph Lake Island. And it's a conservation area.
[00:03:06] Samir: It's a really beautiful spot. And there's like an island there that we actually use. And we have a permanent stage that we built in the early two thousands that we use as our main stage there. And then there's multiple stages and tents and stuff.
[00:03:19] Rosalyn: There's a very special vibe at Hillside. It seems like there's a community that's being created there and fostered there. What do you attribute that to and can you [00:03:30] describe it a bit?
[00:03:31] Samir: Well, I think the origin of the festival, the people who started it, I mean, this is a university town and, I think university towns have fairly rich artistic communities, like small, small towns that have universities, you know, like Guelph and, Kingston and, Waterloo and places like that.
[00:03:47] Samir: There's a rich artistic community, how I like to put it. And I think the people that started the festival were like, you know, uh. Collection of musicians and such that were from around here and, and, you know, people that were involved a bit [00:04:00] already in the arts and they kind of went into it with this approach that this is like this, localized phenomena.
[00:04:07] Samir: So I think from the get go, the actual execution of the event was like, you know, it was being pulled off by local people. And then, you know, they would draw from locally and then it kind of went from there. But I think it's just because right from the beginning, it was like, okay, well, where are we going to go?
[00:04:23] Samir: I mean, from what I was told, when they ended up going to, originally they were going to be on a farm and it didn't work out and they went, [00:04:30] okay, we're going to go to this Guelph Lake thing. And then the thing from there was like, well, you know, you're in a conservation area and you want to be respectful to the land where you are.
[00:04:38] Samir: And, you know, so all these things that were like done that, you know, that hillside has been known for over the years were just plain common sense. it wasn't like, I mean the word green wasn't even around back then, you know, it was just like common sense that, yeah, of course you want to be respectful of the land.
[00:04:52] Samir: You want to clean up after yourself. You want to have, you know, really strong values and ethics you don't want to be commercial. It'd be a [00:05:00] grassroots sort of that way. You don't want to have corporate stuff going on. So I think it reflected right from the beginning, a really kind of, um, personal approach, to putting on a festival that people were very passionate about it.
[00:05:13] Samir: And it drew, drew volunteers from here. And I think that's the biggest thing is that the volunteer base is huge and, has evolved over time. And these people really love doing what they do. Yeah, so I think that's a big part of the community that you're talking about is, it's just that the word community is funny [00:05:30] because, you know.
[00:05:30] Samir: look at it over time as like, it's a community that actually doesn't have any borders because when people come to the festival, they come from all over the place, they come from around here, but they come from all over the place. And it's kind of like when they get there, it's like you get into the zone.
[00:05:45] Samir: Right. so it doesn't matter where you're from. It's not like, it's like a festival. That's like, oh, well, only we only want to draw from local audiences. That's not true at all. it's more like, you know, it's a community based upon common beliefs and [00:06:00] values and things like that, you know, open minded to all kinds of music, which is what the festival has always been.
[00:06:05] Samir: Like it's always, it's not a folk festival, it's just a music festival, right? So The audience is really open minded, and willing to embrace new, new artists and all different types of music. So I think that's where you put it, all these things together and being smart with how you treat the land and, you know, recycling and all these different things that have happened over forever, that's what I think.
[00:06:24] Samir: gives it this this characteristic of it's a real community in the true sense,
[00:06:29] Rosalyn: Yeah. You [00:06:30] mentioned the relationship with the land and some of the environmental efforts. I'm wondering if you can just talk a little bit more about, that, because I feel like hillside is, really, an example that's used a lot, in terms of festivals that are, green, you know, festivals that are kind of putting in some work to be sustainable.
[00:06:45] Rosalyn: Can you talk a little bit about that?
[00:06:47] Samir: yeah so, when we first got out to the lake I mean, you know by design you're in a conservation park. I mean the whole definition of a conservation park is to conserve right Everything that was laid out, the [00:07:00] way the thing, the plans, the site was laid out was done in a way with this in consideration, right?
[00:07:05] Samir: To have the least amount of a footprint left and making sure that you're cleaning up after yourself and things like that. You know, planting trees. We plant trees out there. We've been planting trees out there forever. There's an environmental team. I mean, there's so many different aspects of it that I mean, you know, when right down to like not using, disposable plates or anything like that, you know, right from the beginning, it was like, you know, we're going to have dishes and we're going to have a dishwashing station.
[00:07:29] Samir: So [00:07:30] that's where. That happened. And then at some point along the way, when bottled water all of a sudden started becoming a thing, you know, where like bottled water started showing up all over the place. And it's like, you know, after a few years of that, it was just like, well, why are we having bottled water?
[00:07:45] Samir: You know, this is ridiculous. So let's get a truck. Water should be free. So that was the end of that. 2007 or something is when that happened. it's like, okay, well, we're not going to have water bottles on site whatsoever. We're going to have free water and nobody's going to sell it. It's going to be [00:08:00] refillable containers and all that kind of stuff.
[00:08:02] Samir: And that's what it was just like, again, it was like the common sense thing to do. everything that's happened in this realm for this festival has just been because it's actually common sense, that you do this. I mean, you know, our relationship with, with our indigenous elders that started when we first got out there.
[00:08:18] Samir: You know, it's like, well, we're on, we're on indigenous land and of course we're going to be acknowledging this. And so we had like, you know, a circle and everything at our festival right from the beginning. So it's, it's very organic that way, you [00:08:30] know, like there's nothing been forced of like, well, you better do this. We live in an era now where like, you know, Walmart has an organic section.
[00:08:38] Samir: So, it's a marketable thing. It's become a marketable thing and it The flag gets waived a lot too, but you got to practice what you preach, right? and you got to be doing it for the right reasons.
[00:08:49] Rosalyn: Um, you mentioned, you're presenting music of all kinds. So where, where are you, finding it? Because you know, if you're not defining yourself by a genre, that really opens the [00:09:00] door to a lot of stuff. And I know that you presented pretty eclectic, lineups.
[00:09:03] Samir: well even like right from the beginning when this, when this festival was first started, like there was like a mix of music. It was like, not just one type of music, the only thing that was different was in terms of how far out you would be going out to get artists, you know, and things like that.
[00:09:20] Samir: So it just became more like, you know, like that circle grew, right. but you know, right from the beginning that seemed to be like, The mandate was like, well, you know, we're going to present all different kinds of music. and [00:09:30] so, you know, whether it was folk or rock or indie rock, or, and there was even, even kind of like, music from other cultures, right from the early days, there was stuff that was happening.
[00:09:40] Samir: You know, they might not be coming to you from the other side of the planet, but the style of music was whatever, maybe African or, or, different, ethnic backgrounds. And then over time, you know, as things evolved, it became like, Oh yeah, well now, you know, I'm able to try and look for artists.
[00:09:57] Samir: There's a huge network out there of people that recommendations, [00:10:00] you know, starting when I started going to the, the WOMAX conference in the early 2000s, you know, that was a really good resource, not just for a place to go and see artists from all over the place, but it was actually humongous. networking situation, you're, you're communicating with people that are doing what you do from the other side of the planet.
[00:10:16] Samir: And so that, you know, you just had a much larger resource base of where you're getting ideas from.
[00:10:21] Rosalyn: Do you ever have themes or specific kinds of balances or things that you're looking for?
[00:10:26] Samir: Often on over the years, last number of years, we've had kind of [00:10:30] like an inherent theme, but it doesn't necessarily dictate who I'm going to book, mean, we've had peacemaking themes, which is like just because that's what it should be, you know, at the time and I think it still is actually, but, has relevance to the time we're living in and what's going on around us, I don't really book based upon themes.
[00:10:50] Samir: it's more like I might put some sessions together, like workshop sessions. Or, you know, we've done some campaigns where like we've had some interviews and promotions done with artists that are [00:11:00] appearing who will speak about, will ask them their opinion on, you know, achieving world peace or whatever it may be, and then they will give their personal take on that, you know,
[00:11:09] Rosalyn: you mentioned workshops, and I always like to, to bring this up because it's not a, you know, I think it's something that's, that's so uniquely Canadian. How do you imagine workshops and how do you, how do you put workshops together?
[00:11:22] Samir: I think that of course is, that has also evolved over the years, you know, there was a time where you would just throw a bunch of people into a session and [00:11:30] see what happens, and we still do that to a certain extent, but it's a little more choreographed than that. You want to try to get people to be in a session that makes sense.
[00:11:38] Samir: It's not just like, oh, well, you know, we got, this many people, then they all need to be in something. That's not how we do it. I mean, it doesn't make sense because then you end up having kind of like situations where people maybe don't want to be in those situations. yeah, I mean, I just look for, you know, you've got two types of sessions, really.
[00:11:55] Samir: you've got, the ones where like song circles where like there might be a theme and everybody's [00:12:00] doing their own song. Which is fine. I mean, there's a place for that. and then you've got the collaborative ones where, like, basically, you know, you know, they basically play together in some capacity, you know.
[00:12:09] Samir: that can vary to how, to what degree, how it turns out. Sometimes you have ones that just turn out to be completely full on jam sessions improvised. And other ones that's sort of like more of a, you know, in between, some familiar and some not familiar. Like, I mean, a lot of times it's just a chance for the artist to just kind of drop their guard.
[00:12:26] Samir: And just like, you know, let's have some fun and see what happens. it's a [00:12:30] very popular part of the whole thing. I mean, people, people love them, but you know, they don't always work, but you're, you're sort of taking some chances, right? But when they do work, there's something else, and I think they, they often will surprise the artists themselves. I know that there's, you know, our Canadian festivals, if I think of some of the ones over the years that have really done this type of thing successfully, like, you know, Vancouver in past years and Calgary and Winnipeg and Edmonton and folks like that, you know, it's not as much of a thing in [00:13:00] Ontario as it could be.
[00:13:01] Samir: But then there isn't as many festivals in Ontario that, that are this type of festival, right? Like, I mean, the not for profit, there's only a few of us here. There's like, you know, Owen Sound, Mariposa, and us, and, uh, I think, you know, there's a couple of North, that's about it. but yeah, I mean, like you have conversations with the artists in advance and you say, okay, well, what do you think about this?
[00:13:21] Samir: What do you think about that? I don't just normally people into situations without talking to them.
[00:13:25] Rosalyn: it's thrilling, right? it could go either way. such a unique convergence of, [00:13:30] people in a space and time that you're not going to get again.
[00:13:33] Samir: Yeah, exactly, and you end up with like, sometimes, over the years, there's actually been permanent collaborations that have come out of those meetings. These are people that have never played together before, and all of a sudden, after they've done this thing, they go on and they record something together, So that has happened, I mean, not just from festival, but from other ones, you know, where people have play it and you hear about it.
[00:13:53] Rosalyn: you have any, kind of standout moments? Like that, where you've seen, some [00:14:00] magic on the stage and if not that, maybe like a, a standout performance by someone that's kind of gone on to, to different heights.
[00:14:07] Samir: Well, I mean, as far as like the collab, the workshop stuff, there's been, you know, highlights over the years. There's definitely been quite a few of them, you know, everybody just ends up being in sync. there was one a few years ago, I think it was called, we forgot about the time.
[00:14:22] Samir: titles are always kind of fun. it was like, uh, you know, at the end of the weekend, it was like, it was like, you know, this group of Los Cafeteras [00:14:30] and DJ Shubb and Leonard Sumner. Some indigenous dancers and everything. And it was like completely off the charts. and in the audience were like, you know, wow, we can't believe this is actually happening.
[00:14:40] Samir: So, you know, stuff like that, when, you know, like it really works, sometimes it just means like people need to drop their guard. Didn't let it go. So, yeah, that's just one example.
[00:14:50] Rosalyn: when. You are booking. do you look local as well?
[00:14:55] Samir: yeah, yeah, there's always some artists from around here, for sure. a lot of people [00:15:00] that play music in this community. and I mean, our definition of local is, you know, within 30 kilometers. those are the only people that are actually officially allowed to submit. There's people who are within this radius and there's an application form.
[00:15:12] Samir: Nobody else is officially allowed to submit there's no place that you go in there on our website and go to a link where you, you fill out, if you live outside of this radius, you can't do it. Because I mean, you know, as far as like booking the festival, like, you know, other answer to this, the other half of this is that ideas come from [00:15:30] everywhere. So,
[00:15:31] Samir: I mean, there's people that are, that are being booked from all over the place, but there's always a few local artists, no matter what.
[00:15:36] Rosalyn: what's the application window for the local artists?
[00:15:39] Samir: it's on right now. I think it's until the end of this month. I think it goes to March 1st. It's all on our website. It's it's in there. It's, you know, under the getting involved and then it's got different things and that's how you can get to access to the form.
[00:15:52] Rosalyn: for folks outside of the radius, are you booking independent acts? Do typically go through, agents?
[00:15:59] Samir: [00:16:00] It's, it's kind of all over the place, you know, I can sound like a history book because I've been doing this for so long. What's happened over the last 25 years of me doing this, right? What has changed in terms of how I book this festival?
[00:16:12] Samir: Not much, except for technology. You have technology, you have access to a lot more. you can hear things, you can see things that you normally in the past wouldn't maybe be able to get as much direct, like, here's artist X playing live. This is what it looks like, you know, so it's, you can get way more feedback and then also [00:16:30] just like in terms of the resources that are available for what you can check out what they do now. but in terms of the process, it doesn't really change much. It'll be a mixture of all of the above. I mean, I deal with agents a fair bit.
[00:16:41] Samir: but you know, it's kind of customized, right? It isn't just like, you know, here's our list. Who do you want? It doesn't work that way. It's like, you know, you get to know people and they know what, you do. So they don't make recommendations that are like, you know, well, why would we ever book that?
[00:16:54] Samir: It doesn't fit our programming. You know, there's actually sensible recommendations being made. they know your event, they [00:17:00] know you, so,
[00:17:01] Rosalyn: is there a way that you don't want to be contacted?
[00:17:03] Samir: I don't necessarily like to be constantly asked about it over and over again, believe me, I completely understand where, like, people who are doing, this is what they do, they play, they want to try to get gigs. So, when you run into people in different places, just comes with the territory.
[00:17:19] Samir: it's just that, it can get delicate in the sense that, you know, you only have room for so many artists, right? And not everybody can play. And any festival, anybody who does this job for any [00:17:30] festival in any city will tell you that, lot of the artists who live there think that, they should be playing the festival.
[00:17:35] Samir: and I get it. I understand why they feel that way, makes total sense that they feel that way. Is it possible? No. I mean, it's impossible to sit there and say, well, every single person who plays music in this community should be playing here there's hundreds of them, or if you get into bigger cities, there's thousands of them.
[00:17:51] Samir: And again, I'm not on a criticism. It's more like just a fact, You're not programming the Hillside or Mariposa or whomever local artists festival. That's not [00:18:00] what you're doing You are programming something which people will want to come and see so they can get all kinds of stuff So there's a part there's some local things, but there's also like a whole ton of stuff that normally doesn't come into your area Right?
[00:18:13] Samir: Like, I mean, you know, there's this thing of like, well, there's some people that'll say we don't want to see that many local artists at the festival because we can see them at any time during the year. other people feel, Oh no, it's like, it's a really good opportunity to see somebody play who's local, who's getting a chance to do something in a different environment, you know?
[00:18:29] Samir: And [00:18:30] I get that too. So I understand that part. You know, there's two sides to the whole thing, right? you're booking basically a festival of people that are coming from different places. and, there's a component of it, that has some artists from the area too.
[00:18:42] Samir: So,
[00:18:43] Rosalyn: Do you typically book, around, like a headliner,
[00:18:45] Samir: well, I mean, that, approach has been kind of in there for all along. I mean, it's just, it just varies in degrees to what extent you go. And I mean, I think we're in a time now where like, when I first started doing this in 1998, I said something [00:19:00] about how, you know, It's important for us to note that we're actually part of the Southern Ontario marketplace, like we're not far from Toronto, like we're in a busy region.
[00:19:07] Samir: There's a lot going on. So we are part of that market. Doesn't matter what kind of event we are, we are part of that market. So people have decisions and choices, you know, and the only thing that's happened over time is that there's more of them now. You know, there's more events, there's more festivals, some have come and gone, but, you know, there's just a lot going on. So, it's important that, you know, you try to [00:19:30] maintain some identity and uniqueness in terms of what you do, because It's really easy to have, things that people start comparing to each other. And even though they're very different, like, I mean, we're not a headliner driven festival.
[00:19:41] Samir: We've had our share of them. We're also surrounded by tons of festivals and events and things. So there's people playing everywhere. So it's kind of like, well, if we don't have them, people can go see them somewhere else. That's fine. You know, it's good. people can go see such and such things.
[00:19:54] Samir: So if anything, what I feel is important is that we continue to try to maintain our [00:20:00] own identity. And your own identity isn't necessarily based upon who you book. Like, I mean, you know, we're not a big font festival, as I call them. Like, we're not, we're not like, you know, have the first six names in some humongous font and everybody else is something you can hardly read.
[00:20:13] Samir: That's not us. We do alphabetical, A to Z, same font size. You recognize a few names more than others,
[00:20:20] Rosalyn: we're not a big font festival. It's cool. I haven't heard anyone say that line before. That's awesome.
[00:20:24] Samir: yeah, it's just, you know, and over the years I've seen other people that have adopted this thing of being [00:20:30] alphabetical on their posters as opposed to like having this thing where like it starts with like really huge names at the top. And then, you know, after you get past five or six of them, as you're like, you're starting to squint your eyes trying to read things. And it's too bad because I mean, if anything, at all of these events, there's tons of amazing artists, right? So, it's just the nature of the beast. You know, some, some, some are more like that than others. It's more like, you know, just the way it's marked.
[00:20:53] Samir: It's a type of marketing, right? To,
[00:20:55] Rosalyn: how many artists do you typically book in a, in a festival?
[00:20:58] Samir: well, I'm trying [00:21:00] to scale it back a bit. It's gotten to be too many. It's getting complicated trying to schedule that many artists. So, um, between 50 and 60. and I'm hoping it'll be more towards the 50, because it makes it easier to schedule, but, I mean, it's also hard to say no, sometimes, so, but you know, you gotta find the balance, so, I mean, if anything, you know, there's also the what it costs to put things on these days, it's just way more than it ever used to be,
[00:21:24] Rosalyn: Yeah, absolutely. before we wrap up, I'm wondering if you can give little nugget of, [00:21:30] You know, advice or, stuff that you've seen that you like, what are some things that artists can do to make them stand out to you?
[00:21:37] Samir: well, I mean, the most important thing has to do with like, if you're going to approach somebody about performing at their festival, make sure you're familiar with their festival, make sure you know what they do, and the kind of things that they do.
[00:21:47] Samir: and believe me, we do get lots of artists who know that Including agents, they know it, another thing is, you know, like, um, have some good experience, playing live, but I mean, doesn't mean that you can't be new, always try [00:22:00] to envision, you know, like, what your live show is going to be like, that's pretty much it because the rest of it is kind of like fate, every year, this happens, you know, highlights of the festival each year end up being with artists that most people had never heard of
[00:22:13] Rosalyn: That's great. Samir, thank you so much for chatting with us today and, we'll see you soon.
[00:22:17] Samir: okay. Take care.
[00:22:24] Rosalyn: That's all for this episode, friends. The ReFolkUs Podcast is brought to you by Folk Music Ontario. [00:22:30] Find out more by heading to folkmusicontario.org/refolkus. That's R-E-F-O-L-K-U-S. The podcast is produced by Kayla Nezon and Rosalyn Dennett and mixed by Jordan Moore at The Pod Cabin. The opening theme is by King Cardiac, and the artwork is by Jaymie Karn.
[00:22:48] Rosalyn: Please give us a download, a like, subscribe, rate, and review to let us know you're listening.